


Wisp

by echoist



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-05
Updated: 2010-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoist/pseuds/echoist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from 1.18, just as the boys return from the Hyakkiyakou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wisp

 

  


 

       Watanuki blinked as the scenery shifted in a blur, sky falling into earth while the raucous sounds of the _Hyakkiyakou_faded harmlessly into the mist. Only a moment ago, the air had rushed past beneath him like a buoyant wave, the ground a haze of light and shadow flickering into the distance. A lingering sense of security and warmth hovered around him like a spell about to be broken as the ground solidified beneath his feet. _Had any of it been real?_

        A soft glow pulled his attention down to the lantern in his hand; the strange orange light now filtered through a viscous liquid. A movement against his hand, almost imperceptible, and yet -

        Doumeki. How could he have forgotten?

        Watanuki yanked the h   
ô   
zuki away from the other boy, disentangling his fingers where they had somehow, unbelievably, managed to mingle with Doumeki's on the stem. Clutching the lantern to his chest like a prize, he huffed in indignation.

        “What?” Doumeki asked, testing the ground beneath his feet.

        “What do you mean, 'What?'?!” Watanuki snapped. “We're back in the real world; I don't have to be any closer to you than – than - “ he gestured emphatically, drawing invisible lines in the air to demonstrate his point.

        “Whatever,” Doumeki responded, his voice as neutral as Watanuki’s had been insistent. “It's late; are you headed back to Y   
ū   
ko's shop or your place?”

        “Why do you care?” Watanuki asked sourly, catching up to him.

        “It's late,” Doumeki reiterated.

        “So?”

        Doumeki sighed.    
_How stubborn could one person be?_

        “So,” Y   
ū   
ko chimed in, falling into step beside Watanuki, “He wants to protect you. Isn't that right, Doumeki-kun?”

        The exorcist grimaced, studying the ground at his feet intently. “Now,” Y   
ū   
ko continued, all business, “as I've saved you the trouble of walking all the way back to my shop, won't you boys join me in a drink?”

        “I can't drink sake,” Watanuki protested, pushing his glasses up where they had slipped down the bridge of his nose.

        “Oh, but this isn't sake!” Y   
ū   
ko countered, her lips turned up in a wicked grin. “It's just nectar. Surely you want a taste of what you journeyed all that way for...”

        Watanuki noticed belatedly that the h   
ô   
zuki had changed hands; Y   
ū   
ko was holding it above her head like a trophy. A glowing, pumpkin-shaped trophy. Watanuki sighed, knowing it was futile to argue with his employer over intoxicating beverages, but feeling strangely compelled to do so anyway.

        “You realize we were almost    
_eaten_   
back there.”

        “Oh?” Y   
ū   
ko asked, feigning interest. 

        Watanuki made an indignant hissing sound. “You might have mentioned that humans aren't allowed in the    
Hyakkiyakou before sending us off as your errand boys.”

        “I believe I gave you very clear instructions as to how to comport yourselves while in their world, did I not?”

        Doumeki coughed as Watanuki continued his tirade. “We were this close to being dinner when the little oden kitsune showed up to vouch for us. Was a lantern full of sake really worth risking our lives over?”

        “It's nothing so common as sake,” Y   
ū   
ko stressed.. “At any rate, I suppose it's a good thing you gave the fox your arrow that day, Watanuki.”

        “It was my arrow,” Doumeki interjected.

        “I suppose it's a good thing you went to Doumeki's archery tournament before you visited the oden stand, eh Watanuki?” Y   
ū   
ko looked smug, and Watanuki had the distinct impression that he had lost the argument.    


        Y   
ū   
ko perched on a swaybacked cement fox, polished by years of schoolchildren climbing over and around its gently sloping tail. Lifting the lid of the lantern, she took a deep, lingering sniff of its contents before decanting a small amount into a teacup. “Doumeki?” she asked, holding out an empty ceramic cup in question.

        “Sure,” he agreed, filling the cup halfway and settling against a giant cement tortoise.

        A pair of dark furry ears emerged from a large bag at Y   
ū   
ko's side. “Mokona too, Mokona too!” the creature exclaimed. Y   
ū   
ko chuckled and patted it on the head, filling a sake cup with the thick, opalescent liquid and handing it over. Watanuki rolled his eyes and left the meandering dirt path, crossing the field of clover to where the others had gathered. 

        “Fine,” he muttered, arms crossed. Y   
ū   
ko smiled, an action he had learned not to underestimate. The cup she handed him was filled to the brim with the strangely fragrant liquid, the scent rising from his hands stuck somewhere between cherry blossoms and a freshly squeezed satsuma. His fingers brushed   
  
against Y   
  
  
ū   
  
  
ko's and he jumped backwards across the sand.    


  
        Y   
  
  
ū   
  
  
ko sighed, a curious sadness creeping into her gaze. “Is no one allowed to touch you?” she murmured in a low voice before draining her cup in a single shot. Doumeki looked up sharply, as if trying to divine the intent behind such an unexpected statement. Watanuki settled down on the blanket Mokona pulled from the bag with a flourish, seeming not to have heard her question. Instead, he launched into a glamorized retelling of their evening, managing to conveniently leave out the reason behind their discovery by the    
  
  
  
yōkai   
  
  
  
.    


  
        Doumeki winced as the story reached the point at which Watanuki had slipped out of his grasp and fallen from the    
  
  
karasutengu's board. “That was all Doumeki's fault,” Watanuki asserted, and red-faced, he could not deny the accusation.   


  
        “Oh?” Y   
  
  
ū   
  
  
ko asked, surprised more by the lack of a retort than by Watanuki's pronouncement.    


  
        “He's right,” Doumeki admitted. “If it hadn't been for that House Sprite, I – I don't think I could have - “   


  
        “Hmm,” Y   
  
  
ū   
  
  
ko mused. “I suppose it's a good thing she's so fond of you, Watanuki. Imagine if you hadn't made that ohagi for Doumeki - “   


  
        “I did not make that for    
  
him   
  
!” Watanuki denied vehemently. “I made it for Himawari-chan, but that    
  
_   
glutton   
_   
  
over there    
  
  
**ate it**   
  
  
  
.”   
  


  
  
        “And just when did you become indebted to Himawari-chan, Watanuki?” Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko asked, her curiosity alarmingly genuine.    
  


  
  
        “I – well, that is – she - “   
  


  
  
        “I thought so,” Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko finished. “Are you    
  
  
  
sure   
  
  
  
you didn't make it for him in the first place?”   
  


  
  
        Doumeki stood, setting his empty cup beside the lantern. “Thank you for the hospitality,” he said, bowing formally before the all-too-perceptive witch. “I think it's time for me to go.”   
  


  
  
        “Doumeki,” Watanuki said, blinking up at the figure towering above him. The liquid moonlight warming his gut softened the edges of the world, blurring and reassembling even the most familiar shapes. The disconnected fragments of the evening began to fall together, a not altogether unpleasant pattern laid out at his feet, and Watanuki heard himself say in a voice too incomplete, too lonely to be his own -    
  


  
  
        “Wait.”   
  


  
  
        Doumeki stopped, his hand resting lightly on the cold, metal ear of an iron rabbit.    
  


  
  
        “That tree...it said something, as we were leaving, and I know it was important, but I...” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I can't remember. Not the words, just a – a feeling.” He gnawed on his lower lips, cheeks beginning to burn. “Doumeki...how did we get back?”   
  


  
  
        Doumeki saw the flush riding his cheeks, heard the question he was too afraid to ask. “The Karasu-tengu lent us another floating platform,” he said, his voice surprisingly even. “We rode back to the rift we entered through, and that was that.”   
  


  
  
        “That was...that.” Watanuki echoed, the blank look in his eyes worse than any insult he could ever throw.   
  
  
  
_It had been his imagination, then_,    
  
  
  
Watanuki thought,    
  
  
_   
  
that sense of security, of peace. The surprise as a pair of strong, familiar arms wrapped around his waist, the whisper at his ear promising, swearing by everything he held dear that he would not let go again.    
  
_

  
  
        Nothing more than a dream.   
  


  
  
        He looked down at the empty cup in his hands, wondered how many times he had refilled it from the h   
  
  
  
  
ô   
  
  
  
  
zuki and just how awful the morning would feel in recompense. Anything would be better than the hollow ache in his chest he was trying so very hard not to name.   
  


  
  
        “No, that's not quite right,” Doumeki corrected, crossing the gravel square before he could think better of it. His eyes roamed Watanuki's face as if searching for the answer to an unasked question, and Watanuki tried to remember how to breathe. He did it every day, even when Doumeki stood this close...well, maybe not    
  
  
_   
  
quite   
  
_   
  
  
so near.    
  


  
  
        “I was worried you would fall off, so I put my arms around your waist, like this.” Doumeki pulled Watanuki close, his arms reaching out to encircling the other boy's hips. “You – you didn't seem to mind, so ...so I...”   
  


  
  
        “You didn't let go,” Watanuki answered for him. “Don't let go.”    
  


  
  
        “Kimihiro,” Doumeki breathed, leaning in to press his forehead against Watanuki's, sliding a hand up his back to cradle his head, fingers tangling in an unruly shock of hair. The cup fell from Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko's grasp, spilling the nectar out in a pool at her feet as she stood abruptly. She watched their lips meet, once, twice, hesitation giving way to a small, shy confidence. A slight moan escaped Watanuki's mouth as Doumeki pulled away, and she wondered when she had ceased to exist for them. The string of fate binding the pair together pulsed, reweaving itself as the unwitting exorcist regarded the seer in his grasp and smiled. She watched the smaller, duller threads supporting their connection fade into nothingness, watched the dark, crimson glow of Himawari's strand dim and fall away into the shadows.    
  


  
  
        When the time came, the price would be too great to ask of Doumeki alone.   
  


  
  
        She clapped her hands, startling Mokona with the sudden flow of magic. A stream of incomprehensible words left her mouth, floated out onto the breeze like newborn spiders testing the wind. The archer's hands fell to his sides, his eyes falling shut against the unnatural rush of air. Watanuki staggered back, his fingers reluctant to leave the jut of Doumeki's hips. She set them out like dolls; the smaller boy asleep, his tolerance exhausted, the larger one at rest against the ageless solidity of the implacable tortoise.    
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
        _Really_   
  
  
  
, she chastised herself,    
  
  
_   
  
what were you thinking?   
  
_   
  
  
Nectar obtained from the Hyakkiyakou bestowed the ability to perceive things as they truly were, past all human posturing and deception, past even the bindings that kept the spirit worlds at bay. One drink from the h   
  
  
  
  
ô   
  
  
  
  
zuki would have been enough to open even the least sensitive human's eyes to reality, if only for a moment; the lantern at her feet was nearly empty.    
  


  
  
        “That's not really fair, is it?” Mokona asked, the sober tone jarringly out of character.    
  


  
  
        “It will be,” Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko assured the creature, as if trying to convince herself. She felt intolerably heavy, her limbs rooted to the earth with the weight of her error. Surely, stealing anyone's happiness cast a black mark upon the soul; dampening the light she had seen for just a moment in Doumeki's eyes left a stain that would not soon fade.   
  


  
  
        Those eyes fluttered open and Doumeki shook his head, as if trying to clear it. His gaze fell on Watanuki, curled up like a cat in a patch of sunlight, and he smiled. “Lightweight,” he teased, and for a moment Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko wasn't certain her spell had succeeded. “Ichihara-san,” he began hesitantly. “Thank you for coming all this way to meet us.” Something not unlike guilt curled unpleasantly in her stomach and she ruthlessly suppressed it.    
  


  
  
        “I didn't mind,” she responded mildly. “After all, there's no need for you to enter my shop.”    
  
  
_   
  
Not as yet, anyway.   
  
_   
  
  
  
  


  
  
        “That tree,” he began, scratching his head as if struggling to catch a flickering wisp of memory. “It wanted us to know how important our connections to other people can be.”   
  


  
  
        Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko smiled, her eyes squeezed nearly shut. “Someday, he will realize all that you do for him, Doumeki-kun. I can promise you that.”   
  


  
  
        The boy looked up, surprised. “No, that's not – that isn't what I meant to say.” Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko tilted her head curiously, one eye opening a crack. “I've known Watanuki since we were just kids, but since he met you...he's changed.”   
  


  
  
        “I'm not sure what you want me to say, Doumeki-kun.” Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko responded, lightly stroking Mokona's fur where he perched on her lap. “It was inevitable that he would enter my home that day.”    
  


  
  
        “You don't need to say anything, Ichihara-san, I just wanted to tell you – thank you.”   
  


  
  
        Y   
  
  
  
  
ū   
  
  
  
  
ko blinked uncertainly, at a loss for words. The boy struggled to his feet, limbs heavy and uncooperative. He gave a short, hesitant bow, pausing briefly as he passed Watanuki before turning his shuffling steps towards the temple.   
  


  
  
        “Doumeki,” The witch called softly after him, finding her voice in the sound of the autumn wind rustling the leaves. “You're welcome.”    
  



End file.
